Parenthoods is a social network for moms and dads.

Parenthoods/Screenshot

What it is:

Parenthoods cofounder Jeni Axline got the idea for her startup when she became a mom. "Being home alone all day, you kind of want to pull your hair out," she told TechCrunch. Being a new parent is as lonely as it is exciting and draining. Axline cofounded Parenthoods to provide a mobile community for parents. Parenthoods, the only female-founded startup in its 2014 Y Combinator class, offers stories and advice from real parents.

And because it is localized, Parenthoods lets parents orchestrate meetups and buy or sell things like children's clothing on its app. It's an on-the-go version of mommy blogs and parenting forums.

Product Hunt will help you find the next big thing in tech.

Some of the most tech-prolific investment firms in New York and Silicon Valley — including Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Raptor Ventures, Betaworks, SV Angel, Y Combinator, and Techstars — use Product Hunt to find the next big thing.

Product Hunt, which started in November 2013 as an email list, has since come into its own as a website that looks sort of like Reddit. Product Hunt similarly relies on user upvotes to show you which new products, startups, apps, and websites are the most popular that day. Product Hunt features 20 to 40 new products daily that are curated by a small number of its users. Each product gets one line to explain what it is and to provide a link to its website. Founders and other users participate in the comments, which ultimately help the founders decide whether to fix their prototype or seek out investors.

Use Bannerman to order a private bouncer for your events, on demand.

When it comes to hiring private security for parties and events, the process can be confusing. Bannerman has stepped in to provide on-demand security guards. You just type in the date and address of your event and the number of guards you need (Bannerman suggests one guard per every 75 guests), and Bannerman will set it up for you within half an hour.

For a rate of $35 an hour per security guard, you'll get individuals — many of whom are former military guys and gals, according to Bannerman's website — who will keep the right people in and out of your events. Bannerman also provides guards for building security and home protection. Bannerman's security guards all have valid licenses and have passed background checks administered by the FBI and the Department of Justice.

Shyp brings the delivery guy to you, so that you never have to step foot in a post office again.

Kyle Russell/Business Insider

What it is:

Shyp takes all the hassle out of shipping packages. Instead of taking a package to UPS or the post office, all you have to do with Shyp is take a picture of whatever it is you want to send. A driver will then pick up the package within minutes, and you're done.

You can track your package's progress and see when it arrives at its destination. Shyp comparison-shops across carriers and charges you the lowest price for shipping, adding on $5 plus the cost of shipping. Unlike Postmates, which delivers packages locally, Shyp delivers your packages anywhere in the world.

HackerOne pays "bad" hackers to be good hackers.

REUTERS / Samantha Sais

What it is:

No software is perfectly secure. Before a hacker finds your company's vulnerabilities — Sony's devastating hack in December is a perfect example — you can hire a "good" hacker, someone who knows the ins and outs of computer software, to help you find and fix them. That's the thesis behind HackerOne, a marketplace for bug bounty programs.

"The general problem is that vulnerabilities are inevitable. No matter what your security system, you are going to find issues," HackerOne cofounder and CTO Alex Rice says. "The current state of the world is pretty terrible. A researcher that finds [a bug] in the wild doesn't know what to expect." HackerOne lets users share security information about software. HackerOne's researchers communicate with your company's response team, and you pay them for helping you find and repair weaknesses on your website or in your software. HackerOne gets 20% of these "bounty" payments.

Sources told us that Juicero uses a device that's kind of like a Keurig to juice its fresh fruit, which is hand-picked and sent in a pouch. And unlike normal juicers, there's no messy cleanup. It's like freshly pressed juice, but it's better. Based on sources we talked to last month, Juicero could potentially own its own farms and pick the fruit fresh before delivering it.

Lumoid is a try-before-you-buy program for wearables and electronics.

Lumoid/Screenshot

What it is:

In the market for a new wearable or piece of camera equipment, but wary about sinking a few hundred dollars into something you might not like using? Lumoid's try-before-you-buy service for wearables, drones, cameras, and more is like the Warby Parker for electronics. Lumoid also provides information about the products on its website.

Users can rent or buy cameras, 3D printers, fitness trackers, drones, and more. The company also offers a rent-to-own service, and it lets customers convert the amount they have spent on rentals into credits toward a purchase. In November, Lumoid announced it would start a program called Lumoid Locals, which lets users rent out their devices to make some money.

Slack is a workplace communication app that has taken the business world by storm. Slack gives users a group chat room and lets them share files and work collaboratively, in addition to setting up private groups and sending direct messages to other individual users. Slack was originally an internal tool used by CEO Stewart Butterfield's team at Tiny Speck, the company that made the multiplayer game "Glitch," but Butterfield decided to spin it out into its own product and company.

Mattermark helps investors keep tabs on up-and-coming startups.

Mattermark is a data platform that helps venture-capital firms stay up to date on promising startups. It describes itself as the "B2B Google," and its software lets investors look at information about startups based on news stories, Twitter, SEC filings, AngelList, CrunchBase, and more.

"We don't believe we can replace investors' ability to build relationships with entrepreneurs, but we do think we can help them source opportunities more efficiently and reduce the chances of missing a whale," Mattermark cofounder Danielle Morrill said.

You'll never spend time looking for a parking spot again with Luxe Valet.

Luxe

What it is:

Luxe Valet is an app that promises to help you with the annoying task of parking in cities. It works similar to other on-demand mobile apps: before you leave your house, you plug in the address of your destination. The app tracks you as you make your way there, and about 10 minutes before you arrive it matches you with a Luxe valet attendant.

Dressed in a bright blue jacket, your attendant meets you at your destination, hops into your car, and asks when you will need it back and whether you want the attendant to run your car through a car wash or to fill your tank up with gas. Then that person takes your car to one of several lots in the city that Luxe has struck up deals with.

The most surprising thing about the app is that it costs $5 an hour, or $15 a day. That is much less expensive than other services. A competitor in this same space, ValetAnywhere, charges $6 an hour and up to $42 a day.

Casetext wants to be the Rap Genius for legal documents.

Shutterstock

What it is:

Legal documents are often written in a way that makes them inaccessible and hard to understand. It's Casetext's mission to let anyone read the full text of any legal case in a way that is both understandable and free. Casetext's website lets you search using keywords or citations.

Other users — including professors and attorneys — can read over and annotate legal documents and court cases, making them easier to understand for people researching them. "We're developing technology similar to that of Quora or Reddit, where incentives to contribute are paired with intelligent data science to determine which contributions to highlight," founder Jake Heller said.

Send beautiful flowers fast with BloomThat.

iTunes

What it is:

BloomThat is a two-year-old startup that lets you send flowers within a 90-minute window. The company's claim to fame is its "ridiculously fast" flower delivery service, which it operates in and around San Francisco and Los Angeles. If you're looking for something thoughtful to give your boo, BloomThat has you covered: Flowers start at $35 with free delivery.

BloomThat's mobile app is super simple, so even bouquet-inept boyfriends can send beautiful flowers with a few taps.

Gogoro is building the "Tesla of scooters."

Gogoro

What it is:

Gogoro, which raised $150 million in January after working in stealth mode since its launch in 2011, debuted its first product at this year's Consumer Electronics Show: a smart, plug-free electric scooter. The scooter is powered by a portable battery that you will be able to swap out at Gogoro stations across major cities, according to the company.

Gogoro's scooter is not unlike other electric scooters. It is best for commuting and short trips: its scooters go up to 60 miles per hour, and you can get about 100 miles out of a charge. The Gogoro system connects to the cloud via a cellular network and provides onboard diagnostics through a connected smartphone app.

Eero has a solution for your Wi-Fi woes.

Screenshot/Eero

What it is:

There's nothing worse than having choppy Wi-Fi throughout your apartment. That's the problem Eero is trying to solve. Eero's devices are little white pods that use Bluetooth and mesh networking to connect and extend the Wi-Fi in your home. When you buy three — that's how many Eero says a typical home needs — you'll connect the first to your modem, and the others get plugged in to power outlets. The devices connect to one another through internal radios.

Eero's devices are available for preorder now — you can get one for $125 or three for $299. Its devices will ship this summer.

Zen99 gives a hand to freelancers and independent contractors.

Uber

What it is:

More and more service firms are powered by independent contractors — Uber, Instacart, Lyft, Handy, and Postmates among them. Now there's a startup to help that new workforce. Zen99 provides support in the form of finance and insurance tools for independent contractors. On one platform, users can track their earnings, estimate their taxes and expenses, and sign up for health insurance.

AltSchool is reinventing primary school.

AltSchool

What it is:

Founded by ex-Googler Max Ventilla in 2013, AltSchool creates a network of schools for kids in kindergarten through eighth grade. Each school, called a "microschool," has about 100 students who learn in multiage groups. The multipurpose classrooms are also larger than in a typical school.

AltSchool feels the vast majority of today's young adults did not receive an education that would prepare them to be happy and successful. To solve that problem, AltSchool has created a proprietary technology platform for child-centered learning. AltSchool uses something called "playlists," which consist of a weekly mix of 20 to 25 activities per student per week, including individual projects, small-group projects, or whole-class projects.

Guardant Health has a real-time blood test to replace some cancer biopsies.

Getty Images

What it is:

Guardant Health is a personalized health startup with the potential to vastly simplify the cancer diagnostic process. It has developed a simple blood test called Guardant360, the first product that can test for colorectal, skin, lung, breast, or prostate cancer using a blood sample instead of a biopsy, and it does it in real time.

Biopsies typically take a while because they have to be sent to a lab for processing. Guardant Health's test aims to make risky, expensive, and invasive biopsies a thing of the past.

The Happy Home Company is like having an on-demand landlord who also cleans and does small repairs.

Happy Home Company/Screenshot

What it is:

If you are a renter, you probably have a landlord who will help if something breaks in your apartment. But if you're a homeowner or anyone in need of on-demand home-repair services, one option for you could be the Happy Home Company.

The Happy Home Company provides you with a "home manager," someone whom you can call 24/7. That person will connect you with a qualified, quality service provider who can get the job done for you, whether it be plumbing, cleaning, electrical work, roofing, landscaping, or remodeling. The Happy Home Company charges $9.99 a month for this referral service; that doesn't include the cost of the work it outsources to third parties.

Founders:

Doug Ludlow, Matthew Mengerink

Funding:

None announced

Launch date:

December 2014

Website:

https://www.thehappyhome.co/

Clara Labs is an automated personal assistant.

Maran Nelson/Twitter

What it is:

Clara Labs is an automated system that acts like a virtual assistant by planning your meetings, managing your schedule, and helping you manage your inbox. While the company, which participated in the 2014 Y Combinator batch, hasn't raised any money yet, founder Maran Nelson has confirmed a funding round is in the works.

Your first month with Clara is free, but prices range from $200 to $600 per month after that. While Clara Labs currently serves as AI software, Nelson has indicated that the company could expand beyond that in the future.

Teespring lets anyone design high-quality T-shirts.

Buying shirts for a group of people is always an uncoordinated effort. "Previously, if you wanted to print T-shirts, you had two choices," cofounder Walker Williams said. "Either you had to suck it up and pay the $1,000 bill, guesstimate the number of shirts you need, and go through all that hassle with a screen printer or with CustomInk, or you could go to CafePress and there would be no upfront cost."

Teespring is fixing that by letting you crowdfund and sell customized T-shirts. It's a pretty simple process for the user: You design the shirt, add a price, and start selling. You can gauge demand before the first shirt ever gets printed. Once you reach your goal number of backers, the shirts get printed and sent to people who put in their preorders. Teespring takes a flat fee on every shirt, and you keep the rest. The company ships the shirts directly to the people who bought them, so there's no hassle for you.

Even offers credit to help make ends meet between paychecks.

Even/Screenshot

What it is:

Evenis a smartphone app that's meant to help low-income employees with uneven income streams manage from paycheck to paycheck. While a lot of Silicon Valley tech startups target the rich,Even caters to people with bad credit, or people who have an hourly job and unpredictable hours, by giving them credit to help them when they're having a rough week. They pay a flat fee rather than interest.

Even works with a user's bank account, charging $5 a week to give users a steady paycheck for the same amount of money every week — even if they get a lot of hours one week and fewer the next. Users can take advantage of features including emergency expenses and automatic budgeting. There's also a pause button, which stops payments, for users who are facing financial difficulty. "[Even is] kind of like insurance," founder Jon Schlossberg said. "You pay a flat monthly fee for coverage."

Checkr completes background checks in a snap.

Checkr/Screenshot

What it is:

More companies are providing on-demand services carried out by independent contractors, who drop off your deliveries and drive you from place to place. These workers are typically given background checks before they can start working, and Checkr is looking to take advantage of that market by offering the same background checks offered by traditional firms, but quicker.

Checkr's background reports can be ready anywhere between a few hours and a couple of days, though most are ready within 24 hours. Its background checks include address history, sex-offender searches, and social-security number verification, in addition to checking applicants' names against terrorist watch lists and crime databases. If a company is hiring drivers, Checkr can also do a driving record check.

Move Loot is a marketplace for buying and selling used furniture.

Move Loot/Screenshot

What it is:

When you have furniture in good condition that you're trying to get rid of, your options are limited. You can take some pictures and put it up on Craigslist or eBay, tell friends to spread the word, or give up and stick it out on the curb at a loss. Move Loot, a marketplace for buying and selling used furniture, looks to solve that problem.

Move Loot is a full-service marketplace, offering pickup, delivery, listings, and storage. It has its own warehousing in the cities in which it operates (currently San Francisco and parts of North Carolina) as well as a logistics platform that provides a window for customers to move furniture either in or out of their homes.

Sendbloom provides tailored, outbound enterprise messaging for sales.

Sendbloom/Screenshot

What it is:

Sendbloom simplifies companies' outbound sales processes. It can create hyper-targeted email campaigns, and its sales automation platform saves your company time and resources by mimicking what salespeople do: make deals and cultivate relationships.

The enterprise startup, which raised a $1.5 million seed round in January, launched in private beta last year. Its mission is to give companies a better sales experience, and it serves both small companies and bigger, more established companies in the healthcare and tech industries.

Le Tote lets you rent new clothes and accessories each month, so you never wear the same thing twice.

Screenshot/Le Tote

What it is:

The best way to think about Le Tote is a Netflix-esque subscription service for clothes and accessories. When you sign up for Le Tote, you fill out a survey with your style preferences. Then a stylist picks out a few articles of clothing and accessories tailored to your preferences and ships them to you. You can keep your "tote" full of clothes as long as you want and wear the items as many times as you'd like. You can also opt to purchase any of the pieces.

The startup provides a prepaid box that you fill with your worn clothes and pop back in the mail when you're done. Then the process starts again, with a new tote full of goodies sent to you. Le Tote's service costs $49 a month.